Following the success of their first album, it was only to be expected that another Beatles record would soon make its way to the shelves and the airwaves. In October 1963, eight months after the release of Please Please Me, The Beatles' second album, With the Beatles, was released. This time, however, they took their time and recorded the album over three months, unlike Please Please Me, which was recorded in one day.
With the Beatles featured the same amount of covers (six) and original songs (eight) as its predecessor, only this time one song, 'Don't Bother Me', was written by George Harrison. The song was his first solely-written composition to be recorded and to feature on a Beatles album. He also sang lead vocals on 'Roll Over Beethoven' and 'Devil in Her Heart', both covers. Ringo Starr sung lead on 'I Wanna Be Your Man', a Lennon-McCartney original. The rest of the songs are either sung by Lennon, McCartney or both with Harrison.
The album was not released in the United States until 1987. Instead, a separate album was released in 1964 called Meet the Beatles! The track listing was different to With the Beatles', however. Meet the Beatles! features nine of With the Beatles' songs as well as two 1963 singles ('This Boy' and 'I Want to Hold Your Hand') and 'I Saw Her Standing There' from Please Please Me, giving it a total of only twelve songs.
The album, ultimately, was a success. The album remained at number 1 on the UK charts for 21 weeks, knocking Please Please Me off the top spot. In 2003 Rolling Stone magazine ranked With the Beatles number 420 of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
Fun fact: EMI, the recording label of which Parlophone was under, in Australia never received the cover art for the album so they improvised and made their own, similar to the actual one, as seen below.
Unique to this Beatles album: it is the first album to feature a composition by George Harrison.
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